Robin Hanson Quotes

You have to do a lot of listening, you don't just learn out of yourself.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it

I want to listen with an open mind, but I don't want to listen with an empty mind.

We need a world where the values of science are celebrated: free inquiry, free speech and a healthy skepticism, all coupled with a sense of wonder, a respect for truth and an ability to reason.

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.

Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can.

As scientists, we need to not be afraid of the truth.

It's only through listening that you learn, and I never want to stop learning.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.

The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.

It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

When you talk, you only talk about something that you already know. But when you listen, you can learn something you don’t know.

Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.

The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.

It is not the least service which a college or university may render to those under its instruction, to habituate them to looking not only patiently but methodically on both sides, before adopting any conclusion upon controverted issues.

The biggest piece of advice I have is - listen. Don't jump to the answer or what you think the answer is. The more you listen, the more you learn.

You don't have to always be the smartest person in the room, but if you listen and absorb what you are hearing, you will be ahead of the game.

All I am saying is that if you want to answer a question, then we need to examine and weigh up the evidence. To me, that's not dogmatic that's just... what else would you do?

Embrace truth as it is revealed to-day by human reason.

Science at its best is an open-minded method of inquiry, not a belief system.